There’s a new battleground brewing in the aviation world, and this route on
this airline is smack in the center of it. Hi there, my name is Kevin. This channel
came from a love of traveling, a love of the full process and the journey itself. I feature airline
trip reports and high end hotel reviews from all over the world. My reviews aren’t sponsored by
airlines or hotels so you can be sure to get my unbiased opinion. Am I an expert?
You can decide. Am I fair? Yea, I am. Let’s get into it. Welcome to Delhi.
I just arrived from Paris and after a very strange transit experience I ended up in the
middle of the checkin hall where I am now. If you’d like to know the exact fare that I paid,
or my next five videos in queue, please check out the description below.
After clearing immigration on the lower level, I got in line for domestic transfers. Someone-
at this point, I had no idea who they were- caught a glance at my boarding pass and saw
I was flying business. He took my check in bag out of my hand and waved me to follow him as we
walked straight past the ID checkpoint, staffed by the military. There were around eight check
in desks for rechecking baggage- each with it’s own line. He insisted I cut the line,
took someone else's bag off of the check in belt, put mine there and handed my onward boarding pass
to the check in agent who in a matter of 15 seconds scanned my boarding pass, and put a
new baggage tag on my bag and away it went. I was then rushed into an elevator which
brought me to the check in area where the video started. In the elevator I asked the guy who he
even worked for- and he had an Air India handling ID. We got off the elevator and he started speed
walking again towards security at which point I just stopped him and insisted I could get through
the checkpoints on my own. Separate business class lines are great- but I have no interest in
cutting more queues with Mr. speedy gonzalez. Anyway, now I’m heading for the Air India
Business Class lounge which was- well, I was there for around four minutes.
Their route map being my favorite feature of the space, it was populated with a collection
of chairs- which were not the cleanest and a limited and messy selection of food.
I took a few shots and then headed to the Amex Centurion lounge which was- also strange.
The Amex lounge had a total, not exaggerating, of 18 seats with around 25 staff in the space.
The lounge was built to have a small buffet area but I was given
a tablet with very surprising a la carte menu. The food turned out to be good,
the service was good- but we were all just kinda on top of each other.
I didn’t have too long of a layover so it was soon time to head to the gate. Allow me
to pick up where I left off in my last video. As I mentioned it’s been announced that Air
India Express and Air Asia India will be merged by the end of this year- and Vistara and Air
India will be merged by mid 2024. The driving force behind this is the recent acquisition
of the three airlines by Tata Group, who already owned Vistara alongside Singapore Airlines.
Singapore Airlines will own 25% of the new merged carrier and both Tata and Singapore Airlines seem
to understand the uphill battle they have ahead of them. Tata’s Chairman said of the merger, “We are
transforming Air India, with the aim of providing great customer experiences, ever time, for every
customer. As part of the transformation, Air India is focusing on growing both its network and fleet,
revamping it’s customer proposition, enhancing safety, reliability and on=time performance.”
With Singapore’s CEO Adding, “ We will work together to support Air
India’s transformation program, unlock its significant potential,
and restore it to its position as a leading airline on the global stage.”
All of that sounds like lofty corporate talk, until you realize this is exactly what Tata
and SQ have already done, making Vistara the clear and only premium airline in the country.
Tata and SQ are literally positioned to be the dream team that could actually turn Air India
around for good, lifting their reputation out of the gutter that it’s lived in for far too long.
Air India’s current network is centered around a main hub in Delhi with smaller hubs or focus
cities in Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata- and then there is Air India Express which
is essentially a shuttle service between far south west India and the Gulf Region.
With all of this have come some major announcements, most significant of them
have been the aircraft orders that are being planned, which I’m relying on Reuters reporting
for the details of. They are said to soon be order 495 aircraft. 70 of them will be wide bodies,
split between the A350, 787 and 777X along with 235 A320neo family aircraft and 190
Boeing 737 MAX family aircraft. At the time of writing this Tata also announced that they
will maintain Vistara’s current order book. If the current order books are maintained,
this gives the full airline group 241 current aircraft with 550 on order. That’s a lot.
Everything at and around the gate area was orderly and boarding was called on
time. As you likely know already, this video was not sponsored by Air India-
as none of my reviews are never sponsored by the company that I’m reviewing. But, these do
need to be funded somehow and that’s where your likes, comments and subscriptions come into play,
as they really do help the channel grow. For long time viewers, you likely have noticed some
small changes over the past month or so- and as always I’m open to any feedback you’d like
to leave in the comments- since after all this content is, for you. A big thank you in advance.
For today’s flight stats we ended up pushing back 20 minutes late and
slowly made our way down to Mumbai in under two hours for an on time arrival.
While Air India had been famous in the past for their 747s which frequently flew this route, now
it is mostly dominated by narrow body aircraft. Today we’d be on a five year old A320neo.
And I am liking the newer white livery since
the old cream color frequently just made the planes look dirty.
After a warm welcome on board I was directed to my seat for today, 1F. While the legroom
is a bit restricted in these seats, it was more than adequate for the short flight.
I’m hoping that Tata will go the way of Vistara when configuring their future narrow body fleet.
Air India’s newer planes only have 28-29” of pitch in economy. Vistara has similar pitch but also has
a Premium Economy cabin on all aircraft. Think more Economy Plus than real Premium Economy,
but at least they offer a roomy 33” of pitch and have elevated service in their own cabin.
I’ll mention that I have two Vistara Business Class videos coming in a few weeks,
plus two Vistara Premium Economy flights booked for later this year.
Today’s aircraft had three rows of Business Class with a total of 12 seats,
which were themselves pretty comfortable and offered standard features you’d find with the
exception of no In Flight Entertainment. But I’ll trade a TV for an air vent any day of the week.
No menus on today’s flight, but I am happy to see other recent reports where these
short Air India flights have adopted the same small menu card that Vistara uses.
For pre departure drinks we were offered orange juice, buttermilk or water.
Pushback came and our full Business Class cabin would be taken care of by two hospitable crew,
with one remaining in the galley and the other serving during the flight.
We lined up for take off with the same Vistara aircraft I’d leave
Delhi on at the end of this trip following us.
The spool up, take off and airport stats are coming up next.
The bathrooms on board were well maintained and tidy throughout.
The meal service started off with warm towels and a bit of a bizarre start to the meal.
Bless her heart the flight attendant seemed to be especially proud of the broccoli soup, which I’d
bet this channel on was instant, but actually pretty tasty. There was a sad piece of garlic
bread cum crouton and then the salad. Just like my last flight, seemed like the recipe was, “anything
you got that’s about to go off.” This one was way overcooked broccoli, orange segments and almonds.
Complaining finished quickly though because the main dish was phenomenal- I really wish
the food on my flight from Paris was even close to this. One bright spot that Air India has had
for decades has been their domestic business class catering and this did not disappoint.
There were also four choices. I went with the Hyderabad style Chicken,
but there were also Fish, Paneer and Daal options available.
For dessert was a nondescript dessert which was tasty, but unnecessary after that massive portion.
In my last video, I commented about the pollution when landing in Delhi… well,
Mumbai was a whole different animal. With the air pollution mixed with the sea haze,
you could barely see a thing as we began our approach.
We landed and had a long taxi to our gate, passing by a few of Air
India’s retired 747s which I believe are still used for VIP transport.
Along with a trove of Jet Airways aircraft.
We pulled into Vistara Land and I made my way to the beautiful and oversized baggage hall,
where we needed to wait a solid 40 minutes for our bags.
So, overall- it was a fairly pleasant flight experience. Tata,
SQ and Air India have quite the challenge ahead of them to shed their poor reputation,
but I’m surprisingly very optimistic about what Air India may soon become. I hope you enjoyed
this video, please subscribe if you did so you can catch my next video from the Oberoi Mumbai.